“Come over to Macedonia and help us!” (Acts 16:9)
摘要
The early Christian movement was observed as a social phenomenon on the periphery of society. Luke makes a dedicated effort in his Gospel and Acts to portray the sociological diversity of the earliest Christians and does so with particular attention to the inclusion of minority groups. This sensitivity for sociological diversity and sociological representativeness is deeply rooted within the kerygma of Jesus himself. The gospel of Jesus Christ is intended for all people and includes people from different geographic regions and nationalities, genders, generations, classes, health states, and civil statuses. It is against this backdrop of Luke’s universalism, which highlights Jesus’ kerygma of inclusivity—particularly of the socially marginalised and minority groups—that this contribution explores the social composition of the first Christian congregation on European soil in Philippi (Acts 16:11–40). Three representatives from different social minority groups are the first people on European soil to be directly confronted with the Christian gospel, namely Lydia, a merchant and unmarried migrant from Asia, perhaps a formerly freed slave woman; an unknown slave girl, perhaps of Greek nationality; and the Philippian jailer, a Roman public slave owned by the city. Our observations lead to six concluding reflections on minority groups, social composition, and integration.